Wolf Howling: favortism

Thursday, July 9, 2009

The "Recovery" That Isin't

The latest Republican ad - not a bad effort

Meanwhile, USA Today is reporting that Obama continues a practice from ancient antiquity - that of tyrants distibuting the spoils to their favored subjects in order to cement their power. We saw Obama do it with the extra-constitutional favoring of unions over preferred debt holders with GM and Chrysler, and now we see it being played out in the stimulus. Specifically, when the USA today charts where the stimulus money has gone, they find that those locales that supported Obama are raking in $69 per person, those that supported McCain are getting less than half of that at $34 per person.

At least Obama is tanking in the polls. This from Rasmussen:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 30% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-eight percent (38%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –8. The President’s Approval Index rating has fallen six points since release of a disappointing jobs report last week (see trends).

Thirty-nine percent (39%) now give the President good or excellent marks for handling the economy while 43% say he is doing a poor job. Those are by far his lowest ratings yet on the economy . . .

Thirty-four percent (34%) of voters nationwide say the U.S. is heading in the right direction, the lowest level of optimism since mid-March. The Rasmussen Index shows consumer and investor confidence are down again today reaching the lowest level in three months. The Discover U.S. Spending Monitor fell for the first time in three months. A Rasmussen video report notes that 46% want the government to stay out of the housing market. . . .

As to the last mentioned by Rasmussen, while it was government involvment in the mortgage industry that gave us our current economic meltdown (see here and here) - specifically, social engineering of lending standards in order to achieve racial quotas - Obama has big plans for expanding that bit of social engineering.

(H/T Gateway, Gateway, Gateway)

"Lucky Lefty" Obama, TARP, Chrysler, California and Gangster Government

Obama is not running the government as President according to the Constitution - he is running it like a mafia don from the pages of a Mario Puzo novel. As Michael Barone describes it, we now have "Gangster Government." And as Dafydd ab Hugh has cynically but appropriately tagged him, our nation's leader is more aptly termed "Lucky Lefty" Obama.

First are the TARP "loans" to banks. They came with numerous strings attached. When some of the banks said they wanted to pay the loans back and crawl out from under the thumb of the Obama government, Obama's administration said "not so fast." Like the most lawless of loan sharks, to the contrary, the Obama administration floated a plan to forcibly convert the TARP loans into common stock, thereby making the government the dominant owner of the banks.

As it is, TARP funds are grossly distorting our economy in three ways. One, recipients of TARP loans are being leaned on by the government to act in ways that support Obama goals instead of those of the bank's shareholders and customers. Two, this government interference is going to give great pause to anyone so foolish as to be thinking of investing in any entity subject to Obama administration interference. And lastly, TARP funds are leading to corruption and fraud on a world record scale.

Then there is Obama's well blogged (though anything but well publicized in the MSM) extortion of Chrysler secured bond holders. It is a charge the Obama administration first categorically denied. Now, after others have verified the story, the White House simply refuses to answer questions on the topic . Obama strong-armed the secured creditors to give up their property rights - rights protected both in bankruptcy law and the Constitution - so that Obama could reward the UAW on a grand scale. It is government theft - stealing from innocent investors to give to his union supporters. The Obama administration threatened to destroy the bondholders in the press if they did not comply. Obama excoriated the bond holders as "speculators" at his 100 days press conference - an absolutely outrageous act. There were anonymous death threats made to the bond holders. And to put the icing on the cake, the bankruptcy court ordered exposure of the bond holders.

To add onto all of this, many of the secured bond holders were TARP recipients. These entities were not among the hold-outs seeking to uphold their legal rights. To the contrary, the TARP recipients rolled over long before this, giving up their legal rights so Obama could legally steal from them and give to the UAW. Do you think they were given an offer they couldn't refuse?

Then there is California, a state whose finances have been so mismanaged by the far left for over a decade that now, under fiscal stress, they are headed for bankruptcy by July. Seeing the writing on the wall, Gov. Schwarzenager pushed through legislation to lower compensation for union health care workers - a move that was expected to save over $72 million. The Service Workers International Union appealed directly to Obama. Now, in an absolutely outrageous act, Obama has unilaterally threatened to withhold all $6.8 billion in stimulus funds slated for California unless the California government reinstates the old wage rate for the unionized workers. Dafydd at Big Lizards has the entire story - and it is Obama's extrajudicial actions that led Dafydd to tag Obama as "Lucky Lefty" - an appropriate gangster nickname for our Don in Chief.

I have to laugh when I look back at this point and ponder the last eight year's worth of baseless left wing claims that the Bush Administration was shredding the Constitution. What we are being treated to now is the real deal. It really is "gangster government," and the Constitution doesn't seem worth the paper it is printed on to "Lucky Lefty."